With Pinch Payments, customers can pay their invoices through a number of options: using the Pay Now button on the Xero online invoice, using the Customer Portal, or accepting a Pre-approval Request from a Business.

When a customer accepts a Pre-approval Request from the Business they authorise such business to manage to automatically pay future invoices. 

View Payers

Business can view all Payers and their current status through the Payer Tab in the Pinch Payment Portal. Each payer is assigned a Pre-Approval Status which can be:

• Active > These are the customers who have approved their Pre-Approval requests;
• Not Sent > These are payers who have not been sent a Pre-approval request;
• Requested > These are payers who have been sent a Pre-approval request but have not yet approved it;
• No Email > These are contacts that don't have an email address assigned to their records.

Payers Views

1. From the Pinch Payments Portal select the [Payers] Tab
   
   è  The Payers screen
   
   
   
2. In this screen, you can view all Payers and select the relevant Tab to view different payers by their Status
3. Click on the payer to view more details for that customer

View and Manage Payments from the Pinch Payment Portal

Pinch Payments and Xero have a two-way integration: Contacts and Invoices created in Xero are synced to Pinch Payments and vice versa. When you raise an invoice in Xero for any pre-approval customers, Pinch Payments will automatically deduct the payment on the invoice due date. Unless you have set a threshold for the customer and the invoice is above such threshold.

However, you can also manually send the payment directly from the Pinch Payment portal, when you do this, Pinch Payment will overlook both the invoice due date and the threshold and will collect the payment accordingly. 

1. From the Pinch Payments Portal select the [Payments] Tab
   
   è  The Payments screen
   
   
   
   
   
2. From this screen, you can view all invoices and payments based on their status
3. Click on the Process Now option next to the invoice you wish to pay manually and click on [Process Payment]
   Note: the Process Now option is only available for pre-approval customers
   è  The Invoice Payment will process immediately
   Note: you can also process manual payments from the Payer's Profile
   
   è  An email notification is sent to the Business every time a payment is successfully made
   
   

Payment Reconciliation in Xero

When you set up Pinch Payments and sync it to Xero two accounts are automatically created in the Chart of Accounts:

1. The Pinch Payments Clearing Asset Account > This is where Xero will post all net payments received from Pinch Payments
2. The Pinch Payments Fees & charges Expense Account > This is where Xero will post all Pinch Payments fees absorbed by the Business

Once the payment is made, it will be posted directly to the Pinch Payments Clearing Account. The status of the Xero Invoice will also change to Paid. When the payment is cleared by the bank and the money is deposited in the Business Bank Account, the bank deposit is posted to the Clearing Account clearing the balance back to nil. 

It is important to ensure that the Pinch Payment clearing account balance is either nil or is the total of the payments that have not yet cleared. Therefore, it is advisable to keep an eye on this account by setting it to show on the Xero Dashboard's Account Watchlist.

è  The Pinch Payments Clearing Account

View Settlement Payments

You can also check all payment settlements from the Pinch Payments portal.

1. From the Pinch Payments Portal select the [Settlements] Tab
   
   è  The Settlements screen
   
   
   
   
2. Click on the Settlement ID
   
   è  The Settlement opens
   
   
   
   
3. The Settlement details screen will provide the list of the invoices paid in the relevant settlement including: Gross Amount, Deposited Amount and Fee amount
4. You can also export the Settlement Details to a csv file by clicking on the button [Export to CSV]